Published: Jun 28, 2008 12:30 AM Modified: Jun 28, 2008 12:19 PM
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1123426.html
Michaux represents House's position in negotiations.
Michaux battles to seat of power
Legislator at heart of budget creation
Dan Kane, Staff Writer
In his 29 years as a state lawmaker, Rep. Mickey Michaux has unabashedly earned a reputation as a maverick and firebrand. He rarely backs down from a
fight, is quick to call out a colleague's wheeling and dealing, and makes no bones about his own machinations for the causes he believes in.
Not exactly the guy you would think of for one of the most powerful but diplomatic posts in the legislature -- the House's chief budget writer. But as lawmakers try to hammer out a $21 billion state budget, it's Michaux representing the House's position on money for schools, public safety and pay raises for public employees.
House Speaker Joe Hackney named Michaux, a Durham Democrat, to the job last year after defeating him in a wide-open speaker's race. Hackney has sparred with Michaux over the years -- particularly when Michaux sought to take research dollars away from UNC-Chapel Hill to spend on the state's historically black public universities, including Michaux's alma mater, N.C. Central University in Durham.
But Hackney says Michaux has grown as a lawmaker to the point that he can serve as the lead negotiator on the budget, typically the single most important piece of legislation lawmakers take up each year. The negotiations will pick up again Sunday morning after a two-day break.
"It requires a certain maturity of judgment and a certain calm to sit in that room day after day after day and sort of guide the process," said Hackney, an Orange County Democrat. "I think Mickey has arrived at that point."
Michaux, 77, a nattily attired lawyer with a sandpaper voice, doesn't think he's changed a bit over the years. He says it's the people around him who have changed, now that he's achieved one of the most powerful positions in the House.
"A lot of them like to get in your good graces," he said. " 'Here's the man with the plan,' and all that.
'Like being speaker'
"It's like being speaker or something."
Michaux talks about it in a matter-of-fact way. But it is an interesting turn of events for someone who grew up under segregation and had to fight his way into a white-dominated world. Michaux was one of the first African-American law school graduates admitted to the N.C. Bar Association and the South's first black U.S. attorney. He might have been North Carolina's first elected black congressman in the 20th century if today's rules for runoffs were in play.
Michaux captured more than 40 percent of the vote in a three-way primary contest in 1982, but then a candidate needed more than 50 percent to win. Michaux lost the runoff against the second-place finisher, Tim Valentine, who went on to win the seat.
Michaux returned to the state legislature in 1985 and sought to end runoffs, which he considers a "Jim Crow" law. Eventually, legislation passed that awarded the primary to the candidate who finished first and collected more than 40 percent of the vote.
The son of a successful businessman and a public school teacher, Michaux received a prep school education and started out in pre-med before going to law school.
"I've been sort of lucky in that I've just been able to have a good upbringing and been able to take some responsibility for a lot of things," Michaux said this week during a break in the budget talks. "That's what my parents instilled in me. You have to figure out a way to give something back, just for the life that you live."
That has often meant helping programs and institutions that aid minorities, particularly NCCU. Michaux has continued to help those causes as chief budget writer -- this year, for example, he has inserted $24.5 million in the House budget proposal to build a new nursing college at NCCU -- but he said he has gained a broader view of the state's needs.
Bucked Martin in '89
Michaux has courted controversy in the past for trying to help his favorite causes. In 1989, Republican Gov. Jim Martin sought to win support for legislation giving his office veto power, and he allowed Republican allies to offer $2.7 million for minority economic development programs to the House black caucus. Michaux not only went public with the offer but countered with a request to the governor for $40 million.
"He'll not find many people who will want to work with him any more," Martin said at the time. "He made a bad mistake."
Just five years ago, Michaux led a small group of Democratic lawmakers threatening to join Republicans in choosing the next speaker in a deadlocked House. Michaux's faction eventually supported incumbent Speaker Jim Black, who cut a deal with Rep. Richard Morgan, a Moore County Republican, to be co-speakers that session.
That co-speakership began Black's downfall, when then-Rep. Michael Decker eventually admitted to taking a bribe from Black to switch parties. Black and Decker are now in federal prison for public corruption convictions.
Secrecy still obtains
The scandals prompted new ethics, campaign finance and lobbying laws intended to keep state government honest, but the state budget process is still conducted largely in private. Senate and House budget negotiators have rarely met in open meetings. Typically, they negotiate through written offers passed from one closed meeting room to another. Those documents aren't being made public, either.
Michaux said he doesn't like excluding the public, but he doubted an agreement would get done otherwise.
"You have to cuss, fuss, fight and everything like that," Michaux said of budget negotiations. "Sometimes there's a raw side. We try to keep it as open as possible, but I don't want to hamstring anybody. I want them to be free to say what they want to say without having newspapers criticizing them."
REP. H.M. 'MICKEY' MICHAUX OF DURHAM
BORN: Sept. 4, 1930
FAMILY: Wife, June. They have two children: Jocelyn, from a previous marriage of Michaux, and Cicero, from a previous marriage of June Michaux
OCCUPATION: Lawyer and businessman
POLITICAL HISTORY: N.C. representative 1973-1977, 1985 to present; U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, 1977-1980; has made unsuccessful bids for the U.S. House of Representatives and state attorney general.
MILITARY: Army Medical Corps, sergeant, 1952-1954
EDUCATION: Bachelor's and law degrees from N.C. Central University
dan.kane@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4861
